Day 27: Uluru and Kata Tjuta
Today, we got up at the ungodly hour of 5am, packed into the car with our groceries, and made our way through the darkness to the gates of the national park. We waited for it to open so we could buy our parks pass and head out to Kata Tjuta to catch the sunrise. The mountain range was beautiful, but the cloudy morning prevented us from seeing the sun rising over it.
The Kata Tjuta range is considered even more sacred than Uluru, and as such, the stories associated with it are not divulged to anyone but a choice few Anangu people. Obviously, we were extremely intrigued, but with no hope of finding out the traditional stories, we chalked it up to one of the great mysteries of the world! People are not allowed to walk on the majority of the mountain range, but the permitted hikes have trails to follow.
So we made our way out to the mountains to do our two first hikes. The first walk, the Walpa Gorge Walk, took us through the middle of the mountains to a gorge, where we sat and appreciated the utter peace and silence. The mountains looked like they were a collection of billions of rocks clumped together with clay (or some equivalent substance) and were just beautiful. On the way back, we left our mark and made a little rock stack on one of the boulders there!
After our first walk, we went over to another area of the mountain range to do our second hike, the Valley of the Winds Walk. This one was particularly challenging, as we walked on a track made up of a lot of loose stones and rocks, up and down through the mountains. Unfortunately, Rachna pulled a muscle behind her right knee during the walk, but she tried to walk it off and hope for the best. The views were spectacular and at some points, we really felt like we had the entire mountain range to ourselves. The enormity of the mountains, the complete and utter silence, and the challenging walk were all the ingredients to a unique experience we will not soon forget.
After our three hours of hiking, on our drive back towards Uluru, we saw two wild camels walking by! It was so cool – they were just trotting along in the Outback! We prepared and ate some sandwiches for lunch, and then went to the Cultural Centre to read a bit about the stories associated with Uluru before setting off on our next walk – the Uluru Base Walk.
Uluru is also a very sacred site to the Anangu people, but not as sacred as Kata Tjuta, so they are willing to share the creation or “Dreamtime” stories about it with people. Because it is still a sacred site, so they request that people not climb the rock. Most visitors still do the extremely treacherous climb, despite that this is against the wishes of the traditional owners of the land. We opted to do the more respectful base walk instead, which is a 10.6km walk around the base of the monolith.
The walk itself is not difficult because the land is completely flat, and the weather was decent (not too hot and not too cold), though in the summer, the temperature can hit over 36 degrees Celsius! A quarter of the way through the walk, though, my (Rachna’s) knee decided it had had enough and I could barely walk anymore. I seriously considered calling for help and forfeiting the walk, but after much coaxing, I convinced my knee to continue and limped the next ¾ of the walk around the base. I don’t actually know how I made it, but thankfully, I did. We considered it a sort of pilgrimage in a way, and stopping halfway just didn’t feel right. We are both glad we made it! Once we completed the circumference, we drove out to a sunset point and watched the sun set over Uluru, a beautiful full-circle end to our day.
After going back to the hotel, resting for a bit, and having dinner, we took a little snooze before meeting up with Mireille (the reception girl) and her husband Amit for drinks. We were exhausted after having walked over 20km today, but it was really nice to hang out with new friends! We went to one bar and then to a private bar for the resort’s residents, before having to call it a night (at 1am) out of sheer exhaustion!
The sweetest smelling flower we have ever smelled
Walpa Gorge Walk
Valley of the Winds Walk (can you see the "many heads" of the mountain?)
Wild camel!
